There are increasing signs that workers in the tech industry are starting to see themselves as … workers. Maybe it's the 100-hour workweeks as video game companies get products ready for launch, or maybe it’s the layoffs that come after a big release. Maybe it’s the increasing realization that companies such as Amazon and Wayfair are doing terrible work for the Trump administration, and that their employees are helping make that happen and have no control over it.
Workers at tech companies have staged a series of walkouts over a variety of issues, and subcontractors for Google recently unionized. Game Workers Unite, a grassroots group, has called for unionization in the video game industry. Now, following conversations with Game Workers Unite and with one of its founders onboard as a full-time organizer, the Communications Workers of America is launching a major organizing drive, the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE).
”We’ve been watching the amazing organizing of workers across the industry,” CWA organizer Tom Smith told the Los Angeles Times. “And workers themselves reached out to us while doing that amazing self-organizing, and said, ‘Can we do this in partnership with the CWA?’”
This could get very interesting—and it could really underline the point that unions are not just for blue-collar workers.
● The gig economy is coming for your job.
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● Check out the Economic Policy Institute's top charts of 2019.
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● The New Hampshire state House has once again voted to raise the minimum wage. It will once again be vetoed by Republican Gov. Chris Sununu—but is likely to be an election-year issue as Sununu runs for a third term.
● Why American workers are especially at risk during flu season. (Hint: It has to do with sick leave.)
● Front-of-house workers at the Shed, a New York City cultural institution, are seeking to unionize, telling Hyperallergic that “there was a lot of ambiguity regarding policies and expectations, and ultimately the working conditions were not up to par.”
● KIPP charter school network co-founder Mike Feinberg was fired for sexual harassment. But don’t worry about him! He has a gig consulting for a different pro-charter organization, with the CEO of the Center for Education Reform accusing KIPP of “groupthink” for ditching Feinberg.
